In 2002, both the CIA and Bush’s own Ambassador to
Niger, Joseph C. Wilson, definitively debunked the Administration’s myth that
Iraq had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger.Wilson was the last top U.S. diplomat in
Iraq at the time of the Gulf War, a former Ambassador to Gabon, head of African
Affairs under President Clinton, and a career foreign service officer.His intimate knowledge of Iraq and Africa
provided the requisite expertise for this CIA investigation.

Almost a year after the CIA and Bush’s Ambassador to
Niger reported that a sale from Niger to Iraq was “highly doubtful,” George W.
Bush perpetuated the falsehood to the American people to convince Americans he
had justification to go to war with Iraq.

In his 2003 State of the Union Address, Bush stated
the following 16 words he knew or should have known were false. It is a president’s job to know fact from
fiction -- or at least surround himself with experts who do.

“The British government
has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of
uranium from Africa.”

-
George W. Bush

Courageously, Joseph C. Wilson -- the man who conducted the CIA
investigation -- publicly exposed the Administration’s betrayal of truth to the
American people.News accounts have
since reported the Bush Administration relied on forged documents as the basis
for its claim.

To exact political revenge, the Bush White House
apparently deliberately revealed the identity of Wilson’s wife, a career CIA operative who is an intelligence agent on
weapons of mass destruction.Under the
Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a felony to intentionally
disclose the identity of covert agents.

The Bush Administration’s political revenge
jeopardizes Valerie Plame’s life and the lives of every CIA operative
associated with her over the course of her career.By committing this felony offense, the Bush White House also
exposed the front company, Brewster Jennings, Plame was using.In exposing Brewster Jennings, the Bush
Administration blew the cover of other agents and destroyed critical national
security networks these agents established throughout many years.

Of course, the White House leak ended Ms. Plame’s
career.Ms. Plame, a covert agent, was
one of America’s most important CIA operatives gathering intelligence on
weapons of mass destruction.This
malicious White House leak wasted Americans’ tax dollars invested in Ms.
Plame’s expertise and network.

It wasn’t foreign enemies who deliberately harmed
America’s intelligence community - it was the Bush White House.The Bush Administration exacted political
revenge against former Ambassador Wilson solely because he had the courage to
tell the truth to the American public.The Bush White House behavior in the CIA leak scandal is outrageous and
unacceptable. Americans deserve a President whose administration emanates basic
American values of civility and decency and which is respectful and faithful to
those who protect our nation’s security.

“Somebody in the White House … decided they needed
to get even with Ambassador Wilson, leaked something on the ambassador's wife,
caused all kinds of -- an uproar around here that's got the White House in bad
trouble.Now, there was no reason to
tell the world about the ambassador's wife. It was just a shortsighted,
self-centered, simple-minded cowardly act of revenge… The Bush White
House…thought they were getting even.”

To provide a response to the
vice president’s office, CIA recruited career foreign service officer and
former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson to investigate White House allegations.[“What I
Didn't Find in Africa,” Joseph C. Wilson, New York Times,

Bush’s Ambassador Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick,US
Envoy to Niger told Wilson “that she knew about the
allegations of uranium sales to Iraq - and that she felt she had already
debunked them in her reports to Washington.”[“What I Didn't Find in Africa,” Joseph C. Wilson, New York
Times, July 6, 2003]

Ambassador Wilson concluded
there was no evidence to support the allegation.Iraq had attempted to purchase yellow cake uranium from Niger.He
briefed U.S. Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick, provided a detailed briefing to the
CIA, and shared his conclusions with the State Department of African Affairs
Bureau.[“What I Didn't Find in Africa,” Joseph
C. Wilson, New York Times, July 6, 2003]

“The British government published a "white
paper" asserting that Saddam Hussein and his unconventional arms posed an
immediate danger. As evidence, the report cited Iraq's attempts to purchase
uranium from an African country.”[“What I Didn't Find in Africa,” Joseph C. Wilson, New
York Times, July 6, 2003]

"...[I]n December, a month before the president's address, the State Department
had published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case.”[“What I Didn't Find in Africa,” Joseph C. Wilson, New York Times Op-Ed
July 6, 2003]

In spite of no evidence to support the allegation,
George W. Bush told the American public in his 2003 State of the Union address
that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from an African country.The Bush Administration had access to the
truth for almost an entire year.Yet,
Bush still said the following 16 words, which are patently false.

“The
British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant
quantities of uranium from Africa.”

Ambassador Wilson wrote the
Op-Ed article, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,” published by the New YorkTimes.

Wilson accused the Bush
Administration of exaggerating the intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs in
order to justify its case for war.

“Based on my experience
with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little
choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear
weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat”.[“What I Didn't
Find in Africa,” New York Times, July 6, 2003]

“On
July 7, the White House admitted it had been a mistake to include the 16 words
about uranium in Bush’s State of the Union speech.”[“Probe
Focuses on Month Before Leak to Reporters”Washington
Post, October 12, 2003]

Ambassador
Wilson says the revelation of his wife’s identity was “an
attempt to intimidate others like him from talking about Bush administration
intelligence failures.”

“’It's a shot
across the bow to these people, that if you talk we'll take your family and
drag them through the mud as well,’ he said [Wilson]in an interview.”[“Columnist
Blows CIA Agent’s Cover,” Newsda,y
July 22, 2003]

“Senior
intelligence officials said … that the CIA filed what they termed a ’crime
report’ with the Justice Department in late July, shortly after syndicated
columnist Robert D. Novak, citing two unnamed administration sources,
identified Wilson's wife by name. The CIA report pointed to a ’possible
violation of federal criminal law involving the unauthorized disclosure of
classified information.’"
[“Bush Vows Action if
Aides Had Role in Leak,” Washington
Post, September 30, 2003]

"The CIA, in
response to the Justice queries, says the information in the Novak column was
not authorized for release and could not have come from a source outside the
government.”[“Justice Department
Begins Probe of CIA Leak,”USA
Today, September 30, 2003]

“A
senior administration official told The [Washington] Post … that two top
government officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed
the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame” prior to the
publication of the Novak column.[“Media
Review Conduct After Leak,” Washington
Post, September 29, 2003]

“Rep.
Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Government Reform
Committee, requests an investigation into the Bush administration's handling of
the leak. Several other Democrats call on Attorney General John Ashcroft to
appoint an independent counsel to investigate.” [“Justice Department Begins Probe of CIA Leak,” USA
Today,September
30, 2003]

“Democratic leaders demanded the
administration appoint a special counsel to investigate the charges that a CIA
operative's name was divulged in an effort to discredit her husband, a
prominent critic of Bush's Iraq policy.”[“Bush
Vows Action if Aides Had Role in Leak,” Washington
Post, September 30, 2003]

“The track record of John Ashcroft and this Justice
Department do not adequately assure Americans that legitimate questions will be
answered fully without any political bias.”

“The Justice
Department launched a criminal investigation into who leaked the name of a
clandestine CIA officer, and President Bush directed his White House staff on
Tuesday to cooperate fully. The president's request came a day after his
spokesman denied White House involvement in the leak.”[“Justice Department
Begins Probe of CIA Leak” USA
Today September 30, 2003]

“ In an unprecedented move, ’White House
lawyers will review phone logs and other records supplied by presidential aides
before turning the documents over to the Justice Department officials
conducting the investigation into who leaked a CIA undercover operative's
identity,’ officials said.”[“Bush Aides
Will Review Leak Note,s” Dallas
Morning News,October 7,
2003]

"’To allow the White House counsel to review records before the
prosecutors would see them is just about unheard of in the way cases are always
prosecuted,’ said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., speaking on NBC's Today
show. ’And the possibility of mischief, or worse than mischief, is very, very
large.’"[“Bush Aides Will
Review Leak Notes,”Dallas Morning News,
October 7, 2003]

“FBI
agents investigating the disclosure of a CIA officer's identity have begun by
examining events in the month before the leak, when the CIA, the White House
and Vice President Cheney's office first were asked about former ambassador
Joseph C. Wilson IV's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger, according to sources
familiar with the probe.” [“Probe
Focuses on Month Before Leak to Reporters,” Washington
Post, October 12, 2003]

“Ashcroft and his aides have stressed repeatedly that the
department's career attorneys are being left to run the investigation free of
political hindrance.”[“Democrats
Eye Ashcroft's Role in CIA-Leak Inquiry,” New York
Times,October 22,
2003]

“Attorney
General John Ashcroft's top aides have briefed him regularly on key details in
the investigation into the disclosure of a CIA officer's identity, including
the identities of those interviewed by the FBI, a senior Justice Department
official told members of Congress.” [“Democrats Eye Ashcroft's Role in CIA-Leak Inquiry,” New York
Times, October 22, 2003]

“After
months of resisting Democratic demands that he step aside from the
investigation into who in the Bush administration leaked the identity of a CIA
agent, Attorney General John Ashcroft abruptly recused himself … from any
further oversight of the case, and his deputy immediately appointed a special
prosecutor to take over.”[“Ashcroft Steps Aside in Probe into CIA Leak,” Boston
Globe, December 31, 2003]

“Bush…won't say whether he'll ask staffers to release
reporters from confidentiality agreements. Signing such
confidentiality waiver forms could persuade reporters to disclose their
confidential sources. That might help investigators find out if a Bush
administration official leaked the name of Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA
officer, to syndicated columnist Robert Novak in July.”[“Bush Tells Staff to
Cooperate on CIA Leak,”USA
Today, January 5, 2004]

“Federal
law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of
possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's
office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year.
The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice
Department official said.”

”According to these sources,
John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis
"Scooter" Libby, were the
two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in
this," one federal law-enforcement officer said."[“'Hard
Evidence' Shows Cheney's Staff Outed CIA Operative” Capitol Hill Blue
February 6, 2004]

The
grand jury investigating the illegal leaksubpoenaed a transcript of a news briefing that showed White House
officials had begun trying to discredit Joseph Wilson even before the July 14
Novak column.“In thesubpoenaed

July 12 transcript of the briefing in Nigeria, then-press
secretary Ari Fleischer called Wilson a ‘lower-level official’ and said Wilson
had made flawed and incomplete statements.”[Transcript: “Bush Staff
Went After Ambassador,”Chicago
Tribune, March 6, 2004]

“Prosecutors
… have expanded their inquiry to examine whether White House officials lied to
investigators or mishandled classified information related to the case…”

“Republican
lawyers worried that the leak case… might grow into an unwieldy, time-consuming
and politically charged inquiry, like the sprawling independent counsel
inquiries of the 1990s, which distracted and damaged the Clinton administration.”

“The
White House last year took the unusual step of specifically denying any
involvement in the leak on the part of several top administration officials,
including Karl Rove, President Bush's senior adviser, and I. Lewis Libby, Vice
President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.”[“Probe Into
Leak of CIA Agent's ID Expanding White House Statements Now at Issue,”San
Francisco Chronicle, April 2, 2004]

“Former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV …
believes the White House official behind the disclosure of his wife's identity
as an undercover C.I.A. officer was ’quite possibly’ Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff….
Mr. Wilson does not limit his suspicions to Mr. Libby. He says another person whose
name ’has most often been repeated to me’ is Elliott
Abrams. Mr. Abrams is a former official in President Ronald Reagan's
administration who became embroiled in the Iran-contra affair and now works in the National Security
Council.” [“Former Envoy Talks in Book About
Source of C.I.A. Leak,” New
York Times,April 30, 2004, emphasis added]

“Investigators questioned Vice President Dick Cheney
recently in the probe of who in the Bush administration leaked the name of a
covert CIA operative last year, a source familiar with the investigation said.”
[“Investigators Interviewed Cheney Recently OverLeak,” USA Today, June 5, 2004]

“Bush was interviewed by government
prosecutors Thursday in connection with the federal investigation of who leaked
the name of an undercover CIA operative to the news media.” [“Bush Interviewed in Gov't CIA Leak Probe,” ABC News,June 24, 2004]

“The American Prospect reports
‘[t]wo government officials have told the FBI that conservative columnist
Robert Novak was asked specifically not to publish the name of undercover CIA
operative Valerie Plame in his now-famous July 14 newspaper column.’ The
officials warned Novak ‘that by naming Plame he might potentially jeopardize
her ability to engage in covert work, stymie ongoing intelligence operations,
and jeopardize sensitive overseas sources.’ The new accounts ’directly
contradict public statements made by Novak.’"

“The [Washington Post] reports that ’a group
of former intelligence officers is pressing Congressional leaders to open an immediate
inquiry into the disclosure last summer of the name of an undercover C.I.A.
officer, Valerie Plame.’ The letter ’reflects discontent and unrest within the
intelligence services about the affair, along with concern that a
four-month-old Justice Department investigation into the matter may never
identify who was behind the disclosure.’ The leaking of Plame's identity is
’viewed within spy circles as an unforgivable breach of secrecy that must be
exhaustively investigated and prosecuted.’" [Center
forAmerican Progress, January 22,
2004]

“ While it took the White House just 24 hours to launch an investigation
into O'Neill, it took them months to launch an inquiry into the leak of a CIA
agent's name. As blogger Josh
Marshall notes, ’Number of days between Novak column outing Valerie Plame
and announcement of investigation: 74 days. Number of days between O'Neill 60 Minutes interview and announcement of
investigation: 1 day. Having the administration reveal itself as a gaggle of
hypocritical goons ... priceless’."[Center
forAmerican Progress, January 13,
2004]

“Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) sent a letter to the White House, exhorting
the Administration to ‘require staffers to cancel
reporter confidentiality agreements so the journalists might tell
investigators whether a Bush administration official leaked a CIA operative's
name.’ Instead of actively pursuing who in the White House breached security
and endangered Valerie Plame, the White House has thus far stonewalled. Schumer
‘argued that the White House staff has only 'partially cooperated' with Justice
Department investigators by turning over phone and e-mail records.’The move would not be unprecedented: ‘In
the late 1990s when Republican congressional leaders were looking into whether
White House officials were leaking information about members of Congress, then
White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles informed news organizations that the
White House was waiving all confidentiality rights regarding such leaks.’"[Center
forAmerican Progress, January 7,
2004]

“Conservative pundit Victoria Toensing floated the scenario that the
Justice Department could ’conclude that administration officials disclosed the
woman's name and occupation to the media but still committed no crime because
they did not know she was an undercover operative.’ Toensing dismissed the leak
as potentially ’typical Washington talk’ that could not ‘even
begin to qualify as a dirty trick.’ But in 2001, in an editorial in the WP
[Washington Post] about the leaking of the contents of a federal wiretap
relating to the investigation of former Senator Robert Torricelli, entitled ‘They Call It a
Leak. I Call it a Crime,’ Toensing had a different perspective. In that
piece she asserted that ’any time the disclosure is a felony...the policy is to
conduct a concerted effort to find the lawbreaker.’ She warned that ’if a leaker
is never caught - and has no fear of being caught - there is no discomfort in
leaking.’ Toensing concluded that ’the leak must be investigated fully if the
law has any meaning’ and ’if that requires subpoenaing a reporter's phone
records, so be it’." [Center
forAmerican Progress, January 5,
2004]

“Toensing's
theory is based on Robert Novak's assertion that his use of the word
’operative’ in his column didn't mean he knew that Valerie Plame was
undercover. Appearing on Meet the Press,
Novak said that he uses ’the word too much [and] if somebody did a Nexus search
of my columns they'd find an overuse of 'operative.' Blogger Josh
Marshall called Novak's bluff. Marshall did a Nexus search of all the times
that Novak used the phrase ’CIA operative’ or ’agency operative’ and found that
’in each case Novak used the phrase to refer to someone working in a
clandestine capacity’ Conversely, Marshall found that when Novak referred to a
known CIA official he used the phrase ’CIA analyst or agency analyst.’
(Questions: Even if one assumes that the leaker didn't know that Plame was
undercover, why are there people in the White House who know the names of
covert CIA operatives but don't know they are covert? Who told those people
about Valerie Plame? Even if the direct leaker to Novak didn't know, didn't the
original leaker commit a crime?)” [Center
forAmerican Progress, January 5,
2004]

“The Senate Democratic Policy
Committee … held
hearings to look into the security breach caused by the White House
leak of the identity of an intelligence operative. According to
Sen. Tom Daschle, ‘Just as there is unanimity in the importance of human
intelligence, Democrats and Republicans agree publicly disclosing the
identities of these assets cause great harm.’ However, as Sen. John Rockefeller
said, the president has been ’rather tepid’ and ’detached’ from the process of tracking
down the security breach in his office. The committee heard from former CIA
operatives Jim Marcinkowski, Larry Johnson and Vince Cannistraro. Cannistraro
claimed the leak of Valerie Plame's name was a ’dirty trick’ undertaken to
’undermine and trash Ambassador [Joe] Wilson,’ as well as
‘demonstrate...contempt for CIA by bringing Valerie's name into it.’"[Center
forAmerican Progress, October 31,
2003]

“To undermine our intelligence
efforts and to risk the lives of our agents is beyond the pale and
unacceptable. We learned in
the last days the extent to which someone in a powerful position in his
Administration, bent on revenge, endangered Ambassador Joe Wilson’s wife
because her husband had committed the great crime of telling the truth. Outing
a CIA agent endangers lives, threatens national security and breaks faith with
those who put their lives on the line to protect this country.“